Special pleading: Difference between revisions

{{a|psychology|[[File:All different.jpg|450px|thumb|center|You’re all different. You’re all individuals.]]}}{{d|Special pleading|/ˈspɛʃəl/ /ˈpliːdɪŋ/|n|}}<br>1. To cite something — usually, one’s job, person or justification for sorry existence — as an exception to a general principle with which otherwise wholeheartedly professes agreement, without explaining or justifying the exception.<br>

2. A double standard, being a standard that is so good it is worth ''two'' normal standards.

Examples abound. The JC, because he is [[sloth|lazy]] is an inveterate ''simplifier''. There is not a contract in the world, he is fond of saying, that could not be half the length it is.  

This is hardly a controversy: you will find any practising lawyer to whom you make this observation in violent, general, agreement. So too, the law society, regulatory bodies and legislators. The [[SEC]] has written an [https://www.sec.gov/pfd/handbook.pdf impassioned tract] imploring prospectus writers to be brief. The European Commission won’t let you even market securities unless you are [[K.I.I.D.|curt to the point of bluntness]]. It is widely acknowledged, that most legal discourse is overwrought; much of it hot air.  

Yet we find a curious dissonance: for however passionately a [[legal eagle]] may agree with this proposition ''in the abstract'', it will be a different story ''in the particular''. Especially where the particular in question is ''her own document''.  

“Ah, yes,” she will say. “Generally, one should be short and to the point, but this is a [[special case]].”

For the world is composed of special cases. Every one of us is different. This we call a ''[[paradox]]''. You know how the JC loves a [[paradox]].

Now everything in the [[legal eagle]]’s armoury is arranged around the [[analogy]]. This is ''[[stare decisis]]'': the [[doctrine of precedent]]. The common lawyer proceeds exclusively by [[anecdote]]. She treats each case on its merit. Merit, in the eye of our learned friends, lies only in the ''particular''. The general — the emergent value of all contracts across the market, seen and unseen, is an abstraction beyond the possible [[care horizon]] of a legal advisor. It simply isn’t relevant. Obviously, everyone can agree that ''in general'' legal documents should be shorter, clearer and better, but legal eagles don’t deal in generalities. They deal in particular. Managing risk on a “portfolio” basis – which is surely what all [[financial services]] organisations must do – comes very hard to one trained in the [[common law]].